48 



AUDUBON 



Harris and Bell came back bringing several small birds, 

 among which three or four proved to be a Blackbird ^ 



accounts we have had of the effects of the small-pox are most distressing ; 

 . . . when these warriors saw their strength wasting before a malady which 

 they could not resist, their frenzy was extreme; they burnt their village, and 

 many of them put to death their wives and children, to save them from so 

 cruel an affliction, and that they might go together to some better country." 



"New Orleans, June 6, 1838. We have from the trading posts on the 

 western frontier of Missouri the most frightful accounts of the ravages of 

 small-pox among the Indians. . . . The number of victims within a few 

 months is estimated at 30,000, and the pestilence is still spreading. . . . 

 The small-pox was communicated to the Indians by a person who was on 

 board the steamboat which went last summer to the mouth of the Yellow- 

 stone, to convey both the government presents for the Indians, and the 

 goods for the barter trade of the fur-dealers. . . . The officers gave notice of 

 it to the Indians, and exerted themselves to the utmost to prevent any inter- 

 course between them and the vessel ; but this was a vain attempt. . . . The 

 disease first broke out about the 15th of June, 1837, in the village of the 

 Mandans, from which it spread in all directions with unexampled fury. . . . 

 Among the remotest tribes of the Assiniboins from fifty to one hundred 

 died daily. . . . The ravages of the disorder were most frightful among the 

 Mandans. That once powerful tribe was exterminated, with the exception 

 of thirty persons. Their neighbors, the Gros Ventres and the Riccarees, 

 were out on a hunting excursion at the time the disorder broke out, so that 

 it did not reach them till a month later; yet half the tribe were destroyed 

 by October i. Very few of those who were attacked recovered. . . . Many 

 put an end to their lives with knives or muskets, or by precipitating them- 

 selves from the summit of the rock near the settlement. The prairie all 

 around is a vast field of death, covered with unburied corpses. The Gros 

 Ventres and the Riccarees, lately amounting to 4,000 souls, were reduced 

 to less than one half. The Assiniboins, 9,000 in number, are nearly exter- 

 minated. They, as well as the Crows and Blackfeet, endeavored to fly in 

 all directions ; but the disease pursued them, . . . The accounts of the 

 Blackfeet are awful. The inmates of above 1,000 of their tents are already 

 swept away. No language can picture the scene of desolation which the 

 country presents. The above does not complete the terrible intelligence 

 which we receive. . . . According to the most recent accounts, the number 

 of Indians who have been swept away by the small-pox, on the Western 

 frontier of the United States, amounts to more than 60,000." 



1 Qtiiscalus breioerii of Audubon, B. of Am. vii., 1844, p. 345, pi. 492, now 

 known as Scolecophagus cyanocephaltis. It was new to our fauna when thus 

 dedicated by Audubon to his friend Dr. Thomas M. Brewer of Boston, but 

 had already been described by Wagler from Mexico as Psarocolius cyano- 

 cephalus. It is an abundant bird in the West, where it replaces its near 

 ally, Scolecophagus carolinus. — E. C. 



